Reveries and Sparring
by minachandler
Summary: Felicity has a lot on her mind, but she finds an unlikely outlet in sparring - after a shot of tequila with Sara, of course. A Smoaking Canary friendship fic, set just before 2x17 but with allusions to 3x05. Established Oliver/Sara and implied Olicity (kind of).


"This is useless!"

Felicity looked up from her computer, Roy's frustrated shout breaking through her thoughts. Over the screen, she could see Roy throw the arrow at the wall in anger, and she winced just as Oliver did. Oliver closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair - damp with sweat - in frustration.

"You just have to practise," he said quietly. He put his hand on Roy's shoulder and Roy looked up. "Hey. You'll get there. It took me a while too."

"Yeah, well, I don't think I have a while if Slade attacks Thea."

"Don't think like that," Oliver said firmly. He glanced over at Felicity. "Thea left the club yet?"

Felicity shook her head, getting up the club's security cameras on her screen, before checking the time. "Should be soon, though."

"Get some rest, Roy," Oliver told him. Roy opened his mouth to object, but Oliver quickly said, "It's four in the morning – there's only so much we can do. Take my sister home. We'll practise later. I've got to meet Lance."

"What for?" Felicity asked.

"When Slade killed Alexi –"

"Who?" Roy said, looking confused as he pulled his hoodie over his head.

"Oliver's Bratva friend," Felicity supplied.

"You're friends with Russian mafia?" said Roy, and some of the anger previously on his features was replaced with admiration.

"He technically _is_ Russian mafia," she said before Oliver could say anything. "He's a captain, or so he says."

"I doubt I still am, if our last meeting was anything to go by," Oliver said, trying to look grim, but Felicity could tell he was smiling at least a little more than he had done the last few days. (Not that Felicity had been paying attention.) "Anyway, Slade killed him with an arrow, so I asked Lance for the evidence on the murder. It's a long shot, and Slade is too good at covering his tracks for there to be anything substantial, but I thought you could have a look anyway, Felicity."

She nodded. "Sure." She turned back to her computer while Oliver got his gear on and Roy went up the stairs of the foundry.

Pretending to be engrossed in what was on the screen, it took her a few seconds to register Oliver's eyes on her. It was only when the door clicked, however, that he spoke.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she replied curtly.

There was a pause. "You sure?"

"Oliver, I'm fine!" Felicity said, but the moment the words left her mouth and she saw his face fall, she felt bad for snapping. "I'm sorry. I'm fine, really."

"Okay. No need to apologise," Oliver said lightly. Wisely, he changed the subject. "Well, I meant to say, it's about time you started training too."

She let out something that she supposed should have been a laugh, even though she was aware of the grimace on her face. "Clearly you've forgotten what happened the last time you tried showing me how to fight."

Oliver grimaced too. "I know. But with Slade alive, I would be a little less worried about you if you knew how to handle yourself. Or at least to throw a decent punch that actually hurts someone."

"Well, John did show me how to use a gun. I mean, I knew all the parts already, but I'd never actually touched one or used one. Still haven't, actually."

"Let's hope you won't need to," Oliver said, reaching over and touching her shoulder. "Got to go."

"Where are you going, Ollie?" Felicity jumped; sometimes, she forgot how quiet Sara's footsteps could be. Looking up, Felicity could see Sara was holding two cocktail glasses filled with amber liquid. "I just finished at the club, and I was –"

"Got to meet your dad," Oliver interrupted quickly. "Evidence on Alexi Leonov's murder. Sorry. Another time?"

Felicity couldn't help but notice Sara look a little crestfallen. "Right," Sara said, nodding nevertheless. "Yeah. See you later, then." She kissed his cheek; Oliver looked back at Felicity, smiled and then left by the side entrance.

Felicity watched him go, lost in thought. Her reverie was only broken with the gentle clink of glasses that Sara set on the table. "You okay?" she asked Felicity.

"Yeah," said Felicity, sighing and mentally reminding herself to work on her poker face.

"Fancy a drink?" Sara said, gesturing to the glasses. Felicity was surprised; she expected Sara to ask her what was wrong too. Maybe her poker face was better than she thought. "Ollie promised he would take a bit of time out and have a drink with me," Sara was saying, "but since he ditched me tonight for Dad –"

Felicity laughed. "Oliver does have a tendency not to deliver when it comes to alcohol."

"What do you mean?"

"Before I found out who he was, he came to me with the most ridiculous cover stories, including one about a scavenger hunt," Felicity said, glad to have the distraction. "He got me to decrypt a security fob and said there was a bottle of red wine in it for me if I got through it."

"And you believed him?" Sara said incredulously.

Felicity shook her head. "Of course not. I just wanted the wine, to be honest. And it didn't take me as long as I thought it would to crack it."

Sara tilted her head to one side, a smile on her lips. "I will have to remind him of that promise at some point."

"Oh, it's fine," Felicity assured her. "He came by my place and gave me a bottle for Hanukkah. It just took him about a year, his mother shooting him, him coming to me for help, the Undertaking and a friend of mine going into a coma - long story," she said quickly at the look on Sara's face, "– until he made good on his promise. Kind of. He didn't get the right year, but it was good anyway.."

Felicity eyed the glass wistfully. It was early, technically, but she'd been up all night. And it was two o'clock somewhere. Maybe.

Sara saw her looking. "Go for it," she said, picking up the other glass, and the two women toasted silently and drank.

"Wow, this is good," said Felicity, surprised. "You can kick ass _and_ mix a good drink."

Sara smiled. "I used to bartend in college. And while kicking ass – particularly misogynist ass – is always fun, I haven't had a proper drink with a friend in a while."

"Yeah, I can imagine it's awkward when your sister's a recovering alcoholic," Felicity blurted before she realised what she was saying. "Sorry," she said hastily. "I didn't mean –"

But Sara shook her head. "It's okay," she said. "You're not wrong. Laurel _is_a recovering alcoholic. She says it's fine, but I still feel bad. Same with Dad. And Ollie's been busy training Roy."

"Not just Roy," Felicity said wryly. "Oliver was just saying I need to train as well. With Slade and everything."

"Does he plan on training you?"

"He kind of has his hands full with Roy. Plus," Felicity said, rolling her eyes at the memory, "Oliver seemed to struggle even with the thought of having me as a sparring partner. Not that I was any better," she added. "I kept punching him in the chest, he kept saying it didn't hurt and I couldn't bring myself to punch him in the face."

The two women shared a smile. "I know what you mean," Sara said. Her brow was furrowed in thought. "Do you want me to help you?"

"To be honest, the only thing that will really help me is figuring out what to do when some bad guy is holding a gun to my head and using me as leverage. I can't exactly control, alt, delete my way out of that."

Sara laughed. "True. And I wish you could use the virus you put on Tockman's phone on all the bad guys we have to deal with. But," she said, placing her empty glass on the table and walking over to the weapons cabinet, "failing that, I can always show you a couple of moves that will help you in that situation."

She took out a Colt revolver from the drawer and removed the clip. "Oh, I know how to use that." Sara raised her eyebrows in surprise but handed the gun to her, placing the clip in her other hand. "Load clip," Felicity said, "which I checked has bullets in it, by the way."

"Good," said Sara encouragingly.

The clip clicked into place. "Safety off." There was a second click. "Then I just point and shoot, I guess."

"Not quite."

"What do you mean?" said Felicity, handing the loaded gun back to her. "That's how John showed me –"

Sara shook her head. "No, you did it right, but unless you're an expert markswoman, you probably wouldn't have time to point it and shoot if someone's using you as leverage."

"So what would I do?"

"Well, first of all, you've got to wind your opponent. Usually, he'll be restraining you physically – not with cuffs but with his arm around your neck –"

Felicity shuddered, remembering the time the Count did just that.

"– using you as a shield, so your best bet is to use your elbow."

"And aim for where? His groin?" Felicity said, and they both smiled again.

"You could try, but that's easier when you're facing him and you can use your foot. Try aiming for his stomach." Placing the gun on the table, she walked over to the sparring dummy and demonstrated, jabbing her elbow backwards with surprising force – Felicity could tell because she heard a distinct thump. "But you have to be careful. Surprise is your only advantage, so you have only one shot and you have to make it count. Especially because," Sara continued, leaning against one of the dummy's arms, "that's your opportunity to take his gun from him. While he's winded."

Felicity stepped towards her, picking up the gun from the table and giving it to Sara. "Okay…"

"Then you hold the butt of the gun, keep your feet apart and your weight even - remember, strong foundation means a strong punch – and you hit him, preferably on the side of his head. And that will hopefully knock him out."

"It sounds much easier when you say it," Felicity said dolefully. "I'm just not sure I can actually do it."

"Of course you can," Sara said firmly. "Come on. We're going to practise."

There was a click as Sara removed the clip from the gun, took out the bullets and replaced the clip. She raised the gun. "Ready?"

"Now?" Felicity said, taken aback. Sara nodded, and before Felicity even realised, Sara was behind her, arm around her neck and gun pointing at her head.

"Quick," said Sara. "No time to waste."

Sara's grip on her was surprisingly tight and was starting to become painful. Felicity tried to remember what Sara told her, but when she felt her elbow hit Sara's middle, the hold on her neck did not loosen.

"You have to do it a lot harder than that," said Sara, "much, much – oof!"

Felicity succeeded in winding her this time, and she made for the gun in Sara's hand, but it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter. Before Felicity could even register this, however, Sara was holding the gun again, pointing it at Felicity.

"Better," she said, "but you've got to remember that your opponent has good reflexes."

Felicity nodded. "Got it."

The alcohol had jolted something in her system and woken her up, and with that newfound energy, Felicity kept going with Sara, practising those same moves. By the end, she was exhausted, but at least her mind was too preoccupied with snatching the gun from Sara to stray into other thoughts.

"Well," Sara said finally, "you've got to work on your technique, especially in keeping your weight even, but you're getting there."

Felicity smiled back. "Good to know. Hey," she added, reaching over, grabbing a towel and throwing it to her, "thanks, Sara. for the tips."

Sara nodded. "No problem. I always found it easier to learn how to fight woman-to-woman, if you know what I mean."

"I'm not exactly a natural, though," Felicity said, sighing.

"I wasn't either."

"Really?" Felicity paused, and then she said, "I always thought you fight like a dancer."

"That's a new one," Sara said, chuckling. "I used to do ballet, though, when I was younger, so maybe that's subconsciously coming back to haunt me."

"God, my mom would love you. She wanted a girly girl for a daughter, and she got me instead. I used to dye my hair black and purple," she said in explanation, and Sara's eyes widened a little, "and I used to dress all Goth like until…" Felicity trailed off, realising what she was about to say, and then, suddenly, all the thoughts she had so successfully pushed to the back of her mind in the last hour bobbed to its forefront once more.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Sara said after a moment.

"Tell you what?"

"Whatever's bothering you. I'm pretty bad at sharing my feelings too, so I totally get why you want to keep whatever it is to yourself," she said. "But if you feel like you'll burst if you don't tell anyone – and believe me, I've been there – I'm here."

Felicity was grateful for that – for Sara's disclaimer, so to speak, but also for her offer to talk. She was silent for a few minutes, though, mulling this over.

"I appreciate that," Felicity said at last. "I just… it's my boyfriend," she blurted.

"You have a boyfriend?" said Sara, sounding surprised. "You've never mentioned him."

"'Had'," Felicity corrected. "And there's a good reason I haven't mentioned him. He's dead. He… he killed himself four years ago today. In prison."

She felt Sara's small hand on her shoulder. Felicity took off her glasses and waited for the tears to come, but to her surprise, they didn't. "I'm sorry," Sara said softly.

"He went to prison for something I did, and during his trial, he… he did it. And it was four years ago, but –"

"– it feels like it could have been yesterday?" Sara suggested, and Felicity murmured in assent.

"When it happened," she said, "I remember everyone being so worried for me. My mom wanted me to take a year off from college, and my professors thought I wasn't going to graduate, but actually, it just made me work harder. Just to hide from the guilt I felt."

"You shouldn't feel guilty," Sara told her firmly.

"I still did, though. I felt like part of me had died, too, and I changed. A lot. I dyed my hair blonde, chucked out all my old clothes and just… tried to blend in more, I guess. As if by disappearing into a crowd there would be less pain."

Sara regarded her carefully. "Did it work?"

"Kind of. For a while. But since then, I've seen crazy things happen that I never would have believed – people coming back from the dead, machines that cause earthquakes, still breathing after stepping on a landmine, Mirakuru charged super-soldiers – and sometimes I wonder, even though it's stupid, whether Cooper could come back. Because I never saw his body and the police kept the whole thing really hushed up. I wonder, I hope, I dream that, you know, he was never dead in the first place, and – I don't know. Like I said, it's stupid."

"It's not stupid."

"Can I ask you something?" said Felicity. Sara nodded. "When you… came back, did your family realise how much you'd changed?"

"Dad did," Sara said after a moment. "But it was only because I had to tell him. I have to say, he took it better than I expected."

"Which bit?" Felicity asked.

"All of it," she replied. "Me being an international assassin – I thought me snapping Al-Owal's neck in front of him would be a deal-breaker, really, but it wasn't. And –" Sara laughed, only a little bitterly, "– the fact that the love of my life for the last few years was a woman was definitely something he accepted far more easily than I thought."

"My mom would probably be more mad about the crazy assassin part than the woman part, to be fair to her," Felicity said.

"Laurel was mad about that," Sara admitted, "at least at first. Mom should have been, but she seemed more relieved than anything."

"I wonder if Cooper has changed too. He didn't seem like the kind of person to kill himself –"

"That's what most people say about suicides, Felicity."

"I know," Felicity said, "but I _knew_ him. And I keep thinking – what if there was some reason he had to, I don't know, go into hiding or something, so he had to fake his own death?"

"How likely do you think that is, though?" Sara asked gently.

"Spoken like someone who's died a few times over," Felicity said wryly. "Oliver said he saw you die twice."

"Three times, actually," Sara corrected. "Once on the Queen's Gambit, once on the island, kind of, and once when Nyssa came to Starling."

"What?" Felicity was nonplussed. "What are you talking about? When did you…?" Oliver had never said anything about a third time.

Sara grimaced. "When Nyssa kidnapped my mother, I… I couldn't see any other way out that would mean my mom came out of it alive and I wouldn't have to go back to the League, so I… took the Tibetan pit viper venom."

It took several moments for her words to sink in. "As in – you _took_ the poison? To -"

Her blonde hair obscuring her face, Sara's head was slightly bowed. "Leading that life for as long as I did – there was barely any of me left. It was kind of like a prison, and I guess…" She let out a sound that could have been a weak laugh or a sob; Felicity was unsure which. Sara reached out and her hand covered the gun that was still lying on the table they were sitting at. "I figured orange wasn't really my colour, so I picked the other option. I closed my eyes and tried to comfort myself with the fact that I would die in Nyssa's arms. At least."

"And then Oliver gave you those magic herbs from the island, right?" Felicity guessed.

"They're not magic," Sara started to say, but at that moment, Felicity reached out and placed her hand over Sara's. Smiling gratefully, Sara squeezed back, before getting to her feet.

"Thank God Oliver got to you in time," said Felicity, relieved.

"In time for what?"

Oliver's voice was followed by his heavy footsteps going down the stairs of the foundry, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a couple of evidence bags. Felicity and Sara looked at each other, and Felicity knew Sara understood what they just talked about would stay between them.

"Nothing," Sara said quickly. "Where have you been all this time?"

"I was running down a couple of other leads after meeting your dad," he said. "Nothing significant." Oliver eyed the empty glasses and Felicity realised she was without her spectacles and still had a towel around her neck.

"Sara and I were training," Felicity said. "And drinking."

"Bad combination," Oliver said.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Ollie. Anyway, we have a while to go, but I'm confident she'll get there. With everything," she added, regarding Felicity meaningfully.


End file.
